How Powerful is the Turn-Off Power of Spam?

JayBonci asks: "Here's a question to the Slashdot readerbase. How powerful is the turnoff power of spam? With an upcoming political election in the United States, and a nation not very-well defended against mass unsolicited emailings, what kind of anti-marketing medium is spam? Could a spammer push out millions of: 'V0te for G3orge W. Bush!' or 'J0hn Kerry for Presidnet@', in the hopes to turn off (or on) voters. Spam marketing penetration is terrible (I've heard figures like .001%), but how powerful is its anti-marketing capabilities? An interesting discussion for the Slashdot audience." How often do you make the decision to NOT buy something form a company because you know they engage in spamming activities?

Comments

Enough is enough

[aztektum]

"V0te for G3orge W. Bush!' or 'J0hn Kerry for Presidnet@'"

Please /. editors run stories through a spell check. It should be "'Vote for George W. Bush!' or 'John Kerry for Presidnet'."

Re:Enough is enough

[Joff_NZ]

Presidnet ?

Re:Enough is enough

[tverbeek]

Presidnet ?

Yeah, that's the low-speed, centralised network that the other candidate in 2000 "took the initiative in creating".

Re:Probably not very powerful

[Enrico Pulatzo]

|<3rry

use the &lt;

HTML Entities are your friend, or else a powerful enemy bent on global domination. I forget which

Also, preview is a friend

Mysterious Science

[shfted!]

I don't know, but if it can enlarge my penis, it must be fairly arousing!

I hate you

[OwlofCreamCheese]

I hate you, I hate you SO much.... whatever your asking this question with a plan to do, I hate you and hope you explode in a shower of guts and gut juice.

Are kidding me?

[yawgnol]

What a strange example to use in your premise!

You think SPAM is going to have an effect on this election? SPAM!? You must be living in a different America my friend, because you can send Men In Black to beat me with rubber hoses while writing "Kerry Killed Your Cat HA HA!" in blood on my wall and I will still drag myself on broken arms to the polls to cast my vote against Bush on election day.

So no, we're well $#%@ beyond spam making a difference at this point...

Re:in this election

[tverbeek]

Last time around, a change of only about 200 voters would have changed the outcome.

The Supreme Court isn't nearly that large. {wry grin}

Seriously, the margin of victory in the 2000 election was within the margin of error of the polling system. It works OK when there's a substantial margin between the leading candidates (e.g. Reagan over Mondale, Clinton over Dole), but it simply isn't capable of measuring with the precision that a very close race requires.

How Powerful is the Turn-Off Power of Spam?

[John Hasler]

Very. Take a woman out to dinner, offer her spam, and just see how far you get.